Email continues to be the fastest growing communication medium for businesses. Using email to transmit sensitive information, however, poses many security issues. Consequently, many business have resorted to perimeter defenses such as firewalls, virtual private networks (VPNs), and intrusion detection systems (IDSs). While these defenses help keep out individuals with malicious intentions, they do not address an obvious security vulnerability: the loss of information through unauthorized forwarding of email.
Accordingly, a system and method is needed to selectively prevent forwarding of email communications. The architecture should provide sufficient flexibility to accommodate a variety of email clients and should not require any plugins or other client software installations. Additionally, the solution should be easily deployed in large-scale environments.